https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yvrq7dyg6o (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yvrq7dyg6o)
Sadly, it's only philosophy, so no real use to anyone.
At least it is not a set of accounts for the estate, holding out the prospect that there might be history books in the collection :)
Quote from: Keraunos on February 05, 2025, 08:21:00 AMAt least it is not a set of accounts for the estate, holding out the prospect that there might be history books in the collection :)
To be fair, a set of estate accounts could well provide useful historical information. But there is a limit to just how much Greek Epicurean philosophy we really need :)
Quote from: Cantabrigian on February 05, 2025, 07:59:49 AMhttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yvrq7dyg6o (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yvrq7dyg6o)
Sadly, it's only philosophy, so no real use to anyone.
"Those who despise philosophy are doomed to wallow in the sterile futility of Twitter posts and TikTok videos" - Aristotle,
De Media Inutilia
Quote from: Justin Swanton on February 05, 2025, 09:19:46 AM"Those who despise philosophy are doomed to wallow in the sterile futility of Twitter posts and TikTok videos" - Aristotle, De Media Inutilia
Hmm, I'm not subscribed to either of those sites, so by your assertion I can't be a person who despises Philosophy. So what does it say about a subject, when even people who don't despise it think that it's useless?
Which is exactly the sort of argument that irritates me about Philosophy! :)
Quote from: Cantabrigian on February 05, 2025, 12:46:11 PMQuote from: Justin Swanton on February 05, 2025, 09:19:46 AM"Those who despise philosophy are doomed to wallow in the sterile futility of Twitter posts and TikTok videos" - Aristotle, De Media Inutilia
Hmm, I'm not subscribed to either of those sites, so by your assertion I can't be a person who despises Philosophy. So what does it say about a subject, when even people who don't despise it think that it's useless?
Which is exactly the sort of argument that irritates me about Philosophy! :)
Sorry, didn't complete the quote:
...et multorum alium rerum inutilium. - "and of many other useless things."
He covers all the ground, like a good philosopher.
A bit more seriously, I get that it's very much the anglophone down-to-earth, practical, gotta-make-a-buck mindset to wonder why on earth one would bother about philosophy. And sure, if you're calculating your annual tax rebates it isn't much use. But it is useful in other fields that have less to do with a comfortable lifestyle and a healthy bank balance.
If we accept the journalist's statement that Greek Epicurean philosophy "teaches that fulfilment can be found through the pleasure of everyday things", we may perhaps find more utility in this work if we believe that little lead and plastic figures are everyday things. I believe, do you? :)
A truly philosophical observation.
Quote from: Adrian Nayler on February 05, 2025, 01:46:53 PMIf we accept the journalist's statement that Greek Epicurean philosophy "teaches that fulfilment can be found through the pleasure of everyday things", we may perhaps find more utility in this work if we believe that little lead and plastic figures are everyday things. I believe, do you? :)
Oh right, it's Epicureanism. I'm more Aristotelian myself. It definitely justifies wargaming: a noble, pleasant pursuit that doesn't do one any harm (except create feelings of frustration when your brilliant plan is shot to pieces by a succession of 1's). Epicureanism was the ancestor of the modern scientific method and they invented the idea of atoms, so not so bad for a useless occupation, no?
Quote from: Justin Swanton on February 05, 2025, 01:15:04 PMA bit more seriously, I get that it's very much the anglophone down-to-earth, practical, gotta-make-a-buck mindset to wonder why on earth one would bother about philosophy. And sure, if you're calculating your annual tax rebates it isn't much use. But it is useful in other fields that have less to do with a comfortable lifestyle and a healthy bank balance.
Oh, I don't have a philosophical objection to Philosophy, it's more a comment about just how badly done it is in general. It seems to be either restating the obvious that everyone else knows, or pointlessly overcomplicating an argument until the author can't understand it any more at which point he thinks he's proved something.
And the amateur hour logic... If philosophers were actually any good at logic they'd be studying maths instead.
In my humble opinion.... ;)
Quote from: Cantabrigian on February 05, 2025, 02:06:27 PMQuote from: Justin Swanton on February 05, 2025, 01:15:04 PMA bit more seriously, I get that it's very much the anglophone down-to-earth, practical, gotta-make-a-buck mindset to wonder why on earth one would bother about philosophy. And sure, if you're calculating your annual tax rebates it isn't much use. But it is useful in other fields that have less to do with a comfortable lifestyle and a healthy bank balance.
Oh, I don't have a philosophical objection to Philosophy, it's more a comment about just how badly done it is in general. It seems to be either restating the obvious that everyone else knows, or pointlessly overcomplicating an argument until the author can't understand it any more at which point he thinks he's proved something.
And the amateur hour logic... If philosophers were actually any good at logic they'd be studying maths instead.
In my humble opinion.... ;)
It's a rabbit hole. Depends on what school of philosophy you're talking about. As a moderate realist of the Aristotelian school I see it as essential to complete our understanding of the universe since the concepts offered by experimental science can go only so far.
Take a black hole. It is an entity that has enormous mass and concomitant gravitational pull but
no volume,
no surface area,
no internal structure, no nothing. How does one understand it? Aristotle wouldn't have a problem: a black hole is a substance in which the prime matter has only the formal determinations of mass and localisation. Meh. But if you're not a philosopher, it's an impossibility.
No volume at all?
Quote from: Cantabrigian on February 05, 2025, 02:06:27 PMIf philosophers were actually any good at logic they'd be studying maths instead.
Cannot argue with that!
Quote from: Cantabrigian on February 05, 2025, 02:06:27 PMAnd the amateur hour logic... If philosophers were actually any good at logic they'd be studying maths instead.
But they (https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/3821/103p001.pdf) did (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotelian_realist_philosophy_of_mathematics).
Quote from: Justin Swanton on February 05, 2025, 02:23:03 PMTake a black hole. It is an entity that has enormous mass and concomitant gravitational pull but no volume, no surface area, no internal structure, no nothing. How does one understand it? Aristotle wouldn't have a problem: a black hole is a substance in which the prime matter has only the formal determinations of mass and localisation. Meh. But if you're not a philosopher, it's an impossibility. No volume at all?
What a fantastic example! You see one of my big problems with philosophy is that it gives otherwise intelligent people the tools to delude themselves that they have something useful to say about stuff that they have absolutely no understanding of. The fact that no useful predictions ever come from these self-delusions doesn't seem to worry them.
Even with my limited knowledge, I know that black holes definitely can have volume and substance and surface area. I think you may be confusing back holes and singularities, but singularities are things that we are pretty sure don't actually exist - partly because we already know that General Relativity doesn't really apply at very small distances, and partly because time dilation means that they wouldn't have had time to form yet.
No doubt someone who actually knows about black holes and singularities could point out all the gross errors in what I'm saying, but that's OK because I'm not a philosopher and I'm not claiming some arcane meta-knowledge. I acknowledge that the astro-physicists know far more than me.
But one thing I'm 100% sure about is that when our understanding of singularities improves, it will be the physicists who make the discoveries, and not the philosophers!
QuoteEven with my limited knowledge, I know that black holes definitely can have volume and substance and surface area. I think you may be confusing back holes and singularities, but singularities are things that we are pretty sure don't actually exist - partly because we already know that General Relativity doesn't really apply at very small distances, and partly because time dilation means that they wouldn't have had time to form yet.
I'm not a physicist either but I get it that the main argument against a singularity is time dilation - a slowing rate of collapse from the POV an external observer, but nobody seems to know whether that corresponds to any slowing rate of collapse of the matter itself in the black hole.
Problem with the time dilation argument is that from the matter's POV there should be no slowing at all which means the matter should contract really fast to - what? The theory is that matter simply collapses to a more fundamental level of subatomic particle and that there are several levels of collapse none of which reach zero volume and infinite density (which isn't the same as infinite mass). But this is all theoretical . It assumes one or more levels of collapse past the neutron star level and that no matter how strong the gravity the collapse will never reach zero volume, because it also assumes that the resistance to further collapse by the smallest (?) particle is greater than the the greatest gravitational pull (gravity of course can never become infinite). "Rumors, rumors but no blasted
news!" to quote J. Jonah Jameson.
OK, all this is plausible, if not proven. So no need to invoke philosophical concepts in this case. Does that make philosophy nonsense? No, just possibly - mmmh...I tend to probably - misapplied in this case.
Incidentally, I think it a little hasty to affirm that "singularities are things that we are pretty sure don't actually exist." Who is "we"?
"No doubt someone who actually knows about black holes and singularities could point out all the gross errors in what I'm saying, but that's OK because I'm not a philosopher and I'm not claiming some arcane meta-knowledge. I acknowledge that the astro-physicists know far more than me."
Then I suppose one can acknowledge that philosophers know far more than you as well. ::)
Wibble....
....wobble.
Bringing philosophy back into period ;)
Nor was it only in Athens that men played the part of tyrants as did he [Aristion, tyrant of Athens, 88BC] and before him Critias and his fellow philosophers. But in Italy, too, some of the Pythagoreans and those known as the Seven Wise Men in other parts of the Grecian world, who undertook to manage public affairs, governed more cruelly, and made themselves greater tyrants than ordinary despots; whence arose doubt and suspicion concerning other philosophers, whether their discourses about wisdom proceeded from a love of virtue or as a comfort in their poverty and idleness. We see many of these now, obscure and poverty stricken, wearing the garb of philosophy as a matter of necessity, and railing bitterly at the rich and powerful, not because they have any real contempt for riches and power, but from envy of the possessors of the same. Those whom they speak ill of have much better reason for despising them. (These things the reader should consider as spoken against the philosopher Aristion, who is the cause of this digression.)
This is from
Appian's History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars The translation was made by Horace White;
Quote from: Jim Webster on March 12, 2025, 08:00:08 AMBringing philosophy back into period ;)
Nor was it only in Athens that men played the part of tyrants as did he [Aristion, tyrant of Athens, 88BC] and before him Critias and his fellow philosophers. But in Italy, too, some of the Pythagoreans and those known as the Seven Wise Men in other parts of the Grecian world, who undertook to manage public affairs, governed more cruelly, and made themselves greater tyrants than ordinary despots; whence arose doubt and suspicion concerning other philosophers, whether their discourses about wisdom proceeded from a love of virtue or as a comfort in their poverty and idleness. We see many of these now, obscure and poverty stricken, wearing the garb of philosophy as a matter of necessity, and railing bitterly at the rich and powerful, not because they have any real contempt for riches and power, but from envy of the possessors of the same. Those whom they speak ill of have much better reason for despising them. (These things the reader should consider as spoken against the philosopher Aristion, who is the cause of this digression.)
This is from
Appian's History of Rome: The Mithridatic Wars The translation was made by Horace White;
Philosophers and philosophers, rather like scientists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein) and scientists (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Velikovsky).
I see that, wherever we stand on the philosophical spectrum, we still have rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty ;)
Quote from: Duncan Head on March 12, 2025, 11:53:55 AMI see that, wherever we stand on the philosophical spectrum, we still have rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty ;)
.... With areas of metaphysical certitude. A happy thought. 😁